Halloween Hoodlums
by GalaxieGurl
Summary: Brennan helps Parker gang up on Booth to celebrate Halloween.
1. Chapter 1

Halloween Hoodlums

Parker's Pranks

Knowing how much his father loved holidays, Parker Booth had been planning ahead for Halloween this year. Several weeks beforehand, he had asked his mom if he could call Bones. Now that his dad and Dr. Brennan had been together a few months, Booth had relaxed his stance that Parker had to address his partner as 'Dr. Bones.' The boy was hoping that someday, he could call her 'Mom' as he did Rebecca, but he kept this wish to himself, knowing that rushing things would not help any of the admired adults in his life.

Rebecca knew her son's father almost as well as he did, and once Parker had explained his reason for wanting to talk to Brennan, she agreed with a chuckle. Seeley Booth did l-o-v-e celebrating holidays. And he loved practical jokes. So she knew Parker was on to something with his plan to give his dad a few surprises on Halloween. The day fell on a weekend this year, and she had already arranged with Dr. Brennan for Booth's son to spend the weekend with her, and hopefully, by extension with his dad, once the day grew closer and such plans could be discussed without arousing the FBI agent's suspicions of the trio's ulterior motives.

Thus it was that Parker and Brennan dispatched Booth to the grocery store, video rental Redbox, and costume shop with a long list of required purchases at each location, giving them time to lay their traps and arrange the pranks to which Booth would soon find himself subjected. Their first stop was Brennan's guest bathroom. They raised the toilet set and stretched clear plastic wrap across the bowl, securing it with heavy duty clear packing tape under the rim and around the sides. Brennan had purchased several ripe bananas the previous day, mashed them, and stored them in her refrigerator behind her cartons of fava bean shoots and alfalfa sprouts, which she knew Booth would never touch. Parker carefully removed the dish of 'smashed bananas' as he called them and carried it to the bathroom. The pair spread the mixture across the plastic wrap and closed the toilet lid. As a finishing touch, they unscrewed the light bulb in the bathroom light fixture so that an unsuspecting Booth would be using the facilities with reduced illumination.

Next they short-sheeted the guest room bed where Booth would sleep after a faked squabble with Brennan. Parker would meanwhile occupy her living room couch where he could ostensibly watch cartoon the next morning without disturbing his father or Brennan. After stuffing the sleeves of his dad's terry cloth robe inside to hamper donning his favorite weekend morning attire, Parker draped the robe over the end of the bed.

They put blue food coloring into a bottle of Yuengling beer and recapped it, then substituted Brennan's granola for Booth's favorite Choco-berry cereal. High-fiving each other, they rechecked the time, stashed their supplies, and innocently began a card game of War on the coffee table as they heard Booth pull up in the parking lot.

The agent came down the hallway whistling, his arms loaded with pizza boxes and shopping bags. Stopping at Brennan's door, he bellowed for Parker to come it and relieve his burden. On cue, Parker flung the door open, grabbed the sack of DVD's and grocery bags, greeting his father with a hearty hug.

"I see you fulfilled our shopping requests, Booth. I didn't realize we'd given you so many errands to run, but thank you for doing so, " Brennan said with a smile from her seat on the couch. "There's a cold Yuengling waiting for you in the fridge. Let's open the pizza; I'm starved."

It was all Parker and Brennan could do to squelch their laughter at Booth's bright blue tongue after a few sips of his beer.

Brennan casually mentioned that her master bathroom plumbing was acting sluggish, and suggested that Parker and Booth use the guest room bath for the evening. After two beers and three slices of meat lover pizza, Booth excused himself and headed to 'the head' as Jared would have said.

"Bones, did you know your light's burned out in here? I'll put in a new bulb as soon as I'm done here," he said through the closed door. The guilty duo waited for his groan upon feeling the slimy addition to the toilet. Sure enough, Booth let out a yelp which could have been heard at Pop's retirement center. Ten seconds later he came barreling out of the bathroom, glaring at both of them.

"Do you have any idea how gross that felt?" he demanded. "Once I smelled the bananas, I realized you were pranking me, but that was awful when I first sat down. Yuck, What a disgusting sensation! Which of you two hoodlums came up with that idea?"

By this time, Parker was lying on the floor, struggling for breath, tears running down his cheeks, having toppled off the sofa in his fit of hysterical laughter. Brennan was shaking uncharacteristically, giggling silently at her partner's indignation. Chuckling uproariously, she choked out, "We both did; it was posted on Google Pranks."

The trio resumed eating their pizza slices, watched 'Hocus Pocus" downed more soda than Rebecca would have approved of, and exchanged ghost stories, before tuning into an Animaniac's Halloween special and "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown."

Parker begged to stay up, but Booth refused, and Brennan told him she'd inflated an air mattress in her guest room for him. The boy winked at her over Booth's shoulder as he hugged his father goodnight, and traipsed down the hall to head to bed.

Booth and Brennan watched an Alfred Hitchcock movie, and reminisced about their childhood Halloween experiences before retiring for the night. Once they were in bed, Booth did what all men do under the covers, and released a 'low-flying duck' as Pops had called it. Brennan normally tolerated this male tendency with a poke to Booth's muscular thigh or by shoving his shoulder in protest. But tonight she turned on the theatrics and banished him to the guest room.

"Tell Parker to move to the couch, so he doesn't have to endure your malodorously bad manners, Booth!"

Grumbling to himself good-naturedly, Booth ambled to the spare bedroom and climbed into Brennan's comfy guest bed. Or at least he attempted to.

"Dagnabit! Who short-sheeted the bed?" he thundered.

Parker rolled over, and opened one eye with a grin. "Whatsa'matter, Dad?" he inquired innocently.

Brennan peeped around the door frame, smiling broadly, "Happy Halloween, Booth! Gotcha!"

"Yeah, you did, good and proper, just you wait til next year, you two! When April Fool's Day rolls around, watch out!"


	2. Chapter 2

Payback Time

 **A/N: One reader urged me not to wait long to describe Booth's getting back at Parker and Bones. I hadn't planned a second chapter, but like the idea, so here you go. A conclusion to my practical joke story.**

By the time April Fool's Day rolled around, Booth had accumulated a trove of practical joke ideas to get back at Parker and Brennan. Planning his attack as strategically as he had once prepared for his sniper missions, he chose several jokes to play on both of them.

He confided in Angela who helped him reproduce the logo of Brennan's favorite anthropology journal on a letter announcing that her subscription had been cancelled with no chance of renewal due to her last payment check having been declined for insufficient funds. Furthermore, the letter would state, her financial lapse was grounds for denying her continued term of office as Treasurer of the American Anthropological Society. Booth knew all too well that he'd have to reveal the truth in short order to avoid a Temperance tantrum or meltdown.

He recruited Parker's soccer and hockey coaches to inform his son that a more talented replacement had been found for his position on each of his beloved teams, and that Parker was temporarily benched for the next three games in each sport.

His son had been so reluctant to move to England when his mom first mentioned it that Rebecca had chosen to postpone the move for three years, focusing instead on several complex cases in the States which could benefit from her expertise before taking the career promotion offered to her in the UK. Nonetheless, the parents decided to tell Parker the move was unavoidable and they'd be leaving for London at month's end. Brennan and Booth were inviting Rebecca to dinner in a week to stage the joke.

Rebecca had readily agreed to go along with the ruses Booth was planning, since it had been Parker's idea to prank his father in the first place. Knowing their penchant for creative mischief, she definitely didn't relish the idea of the two Booth boys turning the tables on her someday in the near future.

Booth ordered two new lab coats for Brennan, and enlisted the help of Agent Genny Shaw to launder each of them enough times that they were indistinguishable from the scientist's current stock of lab wear. Once the coats were weathered enough, Genny basted shut the arms of one coat, taking care to hide her stitches and make them easy to remove when the joke was over.

She sewed soft navy blue elastic strips across the back of the second coat, connecting them to the front plackets on both sides in such a way that when Brennan tried to button it, the strips would snug up and prevent the coat from fitting properly. A knowledgeable seamstress, she had suggested this idea to Booth to frustrate his beloved scientist as she donned her daily workwear. She'd devised techniques which would render both lab coats temporarily useless, but not harm them permanently.

Since Sweets was no longer around to participate, Booth asked Agent Olivia Sparling to summon Brennan to a meeting at the Hoover Building in which Director Sam Cullen would inform her that she would have to sit out the next six months of cases with Booth due to a conflict of interest arising from the plot of her latest book. Knowing how upset this would make his wife, Booth would be waiting outside the conference room to take his licks once Cullen revealed the truth.

Booth decided to carry out his practical joke revenge campaign during late February and March to catch Parker and Brennan off guard. The execution of each prank brought 'weeping and gnashing of teeth' to the Mighty Hut on Parker's visitation weekends. With Wendell's help, Booth had set his home's security system to record the pair's responses to these delusions.

The special agent's long-promised payback campaign left Parker and Brennan wishing they'd thought twice before pulling practical jokes on him the previous fall. By the time tax day approached, both his partner and son were wary whenever he entered the front door after work, mowing the lawn or returning from a run.

The last practical joke on Booth's list for Parker was making a serious-faced announcement that he had finally accepted the truth of Brennan's dietary beliefs, deciding to become a vegetarian; and that Rebecca felt the same. Since parents knew what is best for their children, Parker would henceforth be eating no meat. No bacon, no hot dogs, no burgers. No meat.

Booth practiced this proclamation in front of the mirror each morning as he shaved, repeatedly dissolving into silent laughter as he contemplated his son's predictable consternation at the very idea of never again sharing crispy fragrant bacon strips on Saturday mornings with his dad. And Parker did not disappoint. He was beside himself, and presented numerous arguments in favor of a carnivorous diet with increasing desperation over the following days.

The evening of April 1st, Booth bundled Parker and Brennan into the SUV and headed for the diner. Sam, the long-time proprietor and their friend, came out from the kitchen as they were seated and greeted the trio. He solemnly announced that he'd decided to change the diner's menu to a completely vegan one at the beginning of May.

He also told them that after serious consideration, he would no longer be serving his famous French fries, as deep-fried foods were extremely unhealthy. Heading back to the grill before he could break into laughter, Sam resumed his cooking and waited to overhear the fallout from this last of Booth's jokes. His favorite FBI customer had kept him up to date on Brennan's and Parker's irritated reactions.

Parker burst into tears at the prospect of no more savory burgers, and Brennan's face became very dour.

"Booth, overall, I applaud Sam's decision to become a vegan restaurant, but removing his wonderful fries from the menu is more than even I can abide! After all, my stealing those from your plate is a special aspect of our partnership and our 'thing.' I just can't give that up! Do you suppose we can dissuade him from discontinuing them?"

Hearing her dismayed question, Sam stepped out of the kitchen once again and approached their table wearing a broad smile. Booth's trademark grin began to spread across his face, and Brennan frowned. "What's going on?" she asked.

"April Fools!" the two men said in unison. Sam added, "Dr. Brennan, it's true I've decided to expand our vegetarian offerings, but I'd never stop serving our fries. They contributed greatly to our reputation across the District, along with our burgers, and my patrons would tar and feather me like the founding fathers if I ever even considered that idea!"

Parker swiped at his eyes with his fists, and stared at his father. Brennan's mouth fell open; for once she was speechless. Then the pair rose in unison and stepped toward Booth, each indignantly giving his arms a punch with their fists.

"Booth, how could you?"

"That was really low, Dad!"

Sam patted Parker on the back. "The day your father quits eating meat will be the day it snows in Honolulu, son."

"Sam isn't changing his menu, and we're not becoming vegans, Bub. Neither is your mom."

"Thank goodness!" Parker exclaimed.

"Adopting a vegetarian lifestyle is not a bad idea—," Brennan began.

"Bones, as long as there are Booth men on the face of this Earth, we will be meat-eater!" Booth declared. "I love you to death, but I'm not a rabbit! And can we call a truce to the practical jokes now, please?"

"That would be an acceptable idea," she answered.

"No way, Dad, next Halloween, it's game on, all over again!" Parker retorted.

"Okay, Sport, just so you know I can give as good as I get, whenever you least expect it. Once dinner is over, we can head back to the house and watch you two on video if you want."

"Booth, you didn't!"

"Dad, you recorded us? No way that's fair!?"

"It's all about the evidence, Bub!" Booth chuckled. "Really entertaining evidence!"


End file.
